Page 11 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part One

She was still gripping her phone tightly, but the silence on the other end ripped her apart.

“What are you doing? This is my home,” she shouted.

“Oh, there’s two of you,” the man said with a grin. “Then, by all means, please go in.”

She didn’t stop to think about what he meant as she pushed past them and wrenched the trailer door open.

The mess from the broken table was still all over the small living space, and her sister knelt beside her father right in the middle of it. Two men stood behind them. She could see guns peeking out of their holsters. Guns! How did her father get involved with such people in the first place? Brit sobbed quietly, and her clothes were dishevelled, showing someone had roughly manhandled her.

Anger mixed in with her fear.

“Brit!” she cried, rushing forward.

The large man from the morning blocked her path, and when she tried to go around him, he grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her. A scream wrenched up her throat as the pain shot up her shoulder. Getting caught in the hold was a rookie mistake, but she could think straight when she could see how scared Brit was.

“Layla, it’s so good of you to join us. Please let her through,” the greasy man from the morning said.

The big man let her go and stood aside. She immediately joined her sister, pulling her protectively into her arms and glaring at the men who had invaded their home.

“It occurred to me after I left this morning that I didn’t introduce myself to you,” the greasy man said as he stood from the sofa and walked to her. “Costas Markopoulos. I can’t wait to get to know you better.”

“Please, just take Layla,” her father said. “She’s a hard worker; she’ll do anything you ask.”

The cold seeped into her body as she looked at the man who had fathered her. Brit’s sobbing got louder as she tightened her arms around her. How could he? He was supposed to value his children’s lives above his own, but he had just given her away. For what, twenty grand?

“Oh, believe me, Gerald, I’m taking her, too,” Costas laughed. “Your girls are trash from the other side of the tracks; they won’t earn me much. But maybe I’ll have a chance of recovering my money quicker with both of them working for me.”

“Don’t touch my sister,” she warned him.

“I’ll touch her, Layla. I’ll touch her a lot,” Costas grinned before returning to the sofa.

Her body trembled with fury. All these years trying to ensure that Brit didn’t suffer from her broken home life, and this man had come and ruined it all in a day. If he thought she would let Brit become his whore...

“And you will do everything I say, Layla, or I’ll kill your sister before I kill you,” Costas continued.

“She’s only seventeen. Please let her go,” she whispered.

She didn’t like begging, but these vile men had surrounded them, and they were outnumbered. She had to think smart. For a long time, she had been Brit’s provider and protector, but this had never been a scenario she could have prepared for. Being betrayed by their blood. Being abandoned by both parents.

“No. But I’ll let you pack a few things, so hurry and do that while I speak to your father.”

As of that day, Gerald Carlisle was dead to them. He was not their father. She glared at him as she helped Brit to her feet, and the coward didn’t even have the guts to look her in the eye. But she knew her father had always favoured Brit, even though he’d never been much of a father. To some extent, his distress over losing Brit was genuine.

But Brit wasn’t going anywhere. She would make sure of that.

She pulled her sister to their bedroom but one of the men followed.

“Start packing,” she said.

“But Layla—”

“Pack a bag, Brit,” she said, using her firm tone to show Brit she wasn’t playing before pulling two bags from their small wardrobe.

Brit watched her for a moment before hesitantly starting to do as she had been told. Her sister followed her lead as usual, and she hoped Brit had picked up that she had a plan as they packed only the essentials and all their important paperwork. There wasn’t much that had sentimental value in the trailer, but she packed her photo albums and the folder full of all the special drawings and artwork Brit had given her over the years.

When she put her bag next to Brit, she gave her a look before she turned to the man standing in the doorway.

“I need to get toiletries in the bathroom,” she told him.

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